Thursday, September 01, 2005

President Bush will tour the hurricane devastated Gulf Coast region on Friday and has asked his father, former President George H.W. Bush, and former President Clinton to lead a private fund-raising campaign for victims, the White House said Thursday.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Bush will survey the Alabama and Mississippi coast by helicopter, then go on to New Orleans. He also will tour some locations on the ground. He got a higher-altitude view Wednesday when Air Force One dropped several thousand feet to fly directly over the region during Bush's flight from his Texas ranch back to Washington."The president has wanted to visit the area as soon as possible," McClellan said. "We didn't go sooner because we didn't want to be disruptive of efforts on the ground."

Bush had said earlier Thursday that thousands more victims of Hurricane Katrina still need to be rescued and acknowledged the frustration of people who need food, water and shelter.

"I fully understand people wanting things to have happened yesterday," he said in a live interview in the Roosevelt Room of the White House with ABC's "Good Morning America" program. "I understand the anxiety of people on the ground. ... So there is frustration. But I want people to know there's a lot of help coming."

He said that while the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 were a man-made disaster, the aftermath of Sept. 11 and Hurricane Katrina were "just as serious in both cases."